Now Ashes Rise in My Footprints
by Katta
Summary: After Mary's death, John struggles to find a purpose.


**Now Ashes Rise in My Footprints**

At first, John focuses on the little tasks: sleeping, eating, changing Sammy's diapers, talking to policemen and firemen, punching a reporter in the face because no comments means no comments, damn it.

He tells people what happened, and they tell him that it didn't happen that way, over and over again, until he believes it too – or pretends to believe it. There's not much of a difference; sometimes he feels it's all a game of make believe.

Spending too much time around other people, even friends, becomes a burden. He flees the house as often as he can, takes the boys out for a meal rather than enduring another sympathetic conversation. Sammy only just got started on cereals, and it's a bitch to get him to eat. People at McDonald's are used to children screaming, but that doesn't stop John from getting a hell of a headache. There are times when he's ready to give up, make a call to someone – anyone – to take those kids off his hands, because he just can't take it anymore. It only lasts for a couple of minutes each time, then he thinks of what it would be like to be _all alone_, and the thought scares him more than he'd ever admit to anyone.

This one day, Sammy's fussing as always and there's a young woman who's trying to court Dean into playing with her. John is eternally grateful to her, because one kid is about all he can manage at the moment.

Then she looks up and says, with evident disappointment that she tries to hide under a smile, "He doesn't talk much, does he?"

John starts to reply and then shuts his mouth, because his brain finally catches up with him and he realizes: _no, he doesn't_. And that's not the way things used to be. He breaks into a cold sweat trying to figure out when he last heard a word from Dean, and is ridiculously relieved when he remembers a muttered reply only a couple of days earlier. At least that's one thing that hasn't been taken away from them.

That night, though, he makes sure to ask Dean what he wants for supper. When all he gets is a shrug, he asks again, sharper. "Answer me when I'm talking to you!"

Dean stares back at him, wide-eyed, and John has almost given up hope when the boy says, "Pancakes."

Pancakes is a ten mile trip, but he doesn't care.

* * *

The cops close the case, after first spending a month trying to nail John to it. _Motherfuckers_, he thinks, but doesn't say out loud, because even if Dean's only saying a word every second day or so, he sure as hell doesn't want it to be _that_ one.

Accident, they call it, but they have no explanation, and he's determined to find someone who can tell him what really happened. Missouri's a Godsend, both for taking him seriously and for what she's doing for the boys. She makes him feel like they're a family again; he's calmer than he's been in weeks, Sammy is laughing and gurgling away, and Dean won't shut up for hours.

But at the end of the day, they still have to go home, and he finds that nothing has really changed, except that he now has even more fears lurking in the shadows. He watches the boys, and he's sorely tempted to drive them back to Missouri, hand them over and say, _Please, they're happy here. Let them stay._ Later, he adds to this fantasy: _let me stay_. He considers contacting real estate agents, to see if there's a house nearby where he could settle down and get his life back on gear.

Instead, he takes the boys with him to Kansas City, then to KU, and then further still. He spends weeks in libraries and archives, reading through their old newspapers. At first, he looks at fires, any fires, but then he notices a pattern and gets more specific: fires, nurseries, six-month-old babies. Far too many stories like that, though the details are different, as are the deaths – sometimes it's the father, or an older child, but most of the time it's the mother. Makes sense, the kids are six months old, the mother would be there a lot.

He gets scared sometimes as he's reading; even if the boys are in the same room he has to put down his reading material when those times come, hold his kids, keep Sammy cooped up in his arms so nothing can harm him.

He has to stop doing that, he knows. It scares Dean. But when he reads some particularly grisly detail, he just can't stop himself.

Most of the articles don't have names, but that's something he doesn't even think about until one day, in a library cellar room, he comes upon a very unusual one in an article only three years old: Phennapha Keacham. He stops and stares at the words, realizing that it can't be hard to find a name like that in a telephone directory.

"I'll be right back," he tells Dean, rushing up the stairs to find a payphone. Once he does (by the toilets, near the door), he has to find a directory too, running around half the place before he finds the right shelf. He's going much too scatter-brained, and he makes an effort to pull himself together as he searches out the right book and number and returns to the phone.

To his surprise, Ms Keacham is willing not only to talk to him, but to see him too. Her light, girly voice sounds remarkably calm on the phone, and he can't believe his luck. He drives back to the motel where he's been staying and starts packing his things. Three shirts and a pair of pants are already packed, and he's thinking that he should pack his journal in the outer pocket so it's easy to reach, when he remembers that his journal is still at the library – and that _so are the boys_.

He drops everything and rushes outside to the car. Drives so fast that it's a miracle no cops turn up to complain. Once back at the library, he returns to the table where he'd been sitting, but his sons aren't there, even the books aren't there anymore.

"Excuse me," he tells the closest librarian, trying to sound as if he's heart isn't racing like crazy in his chest. "My boys... They were here when I left... I forgot them..."

Her mouth turns smaller than a chicken's ass, and he hates people who make faces like that, hates their sour little sanctimonious souls, but how can he blame her after what he did? She directs him to the staff's area, though, where he finds the boys in a tiny little office with another librarian. Sammy's sleeping in his carrier, and Dean is sitting by the desk, with a large book on his chair to help him reach – whatever it is he needs to reach.

"And then the stamp," the librarian tells him. "Good. You're a natural at this. Maybe you could be a librarian when you grow up. No? Don't knock it yet, it's a fine profession."

John is so relieved that he can't even speak at first, just sags against the doorframe. Eventually, he clears his throat. "Dean..."

Dean practically jumps out of his skin, face lighting up like it's Christmas – a Christmas different from the shitty one they just left behind.

As Dean runs up to him, John can see that his son is now decorated with blue stamps on the forehead and both hands declaring him library property. He'd laugh at that if he wasn't still so shook up.

"I'm so sorry," he tells Dean, and then the woman by the desk. "I'm really sorry – I plain forgot..."

"Don't worry about it," she says with a smile. "These things happen. I left my youngest at the supermarket once – my daughter was the one to realize it, not me."

John smiles politely as he wraps his shaking arms around his son, but he can't help but wonder if "these things happen" is still valid when something strange and evil has killed your wife and your sons have to sleep in the same bed to sleep at all.

He gets his journal back and returns to the motel with the boys, still shook up, but ready to leave ASAP. Once they get back, though, Sammy is hungry, and when Sammy has eaten he needs changing, and all in all John is forced to settle down for an hour and face facts: you can't rush a baby.

He fixes a bite for himself and Dean as well, because they both have to eat, after all, and now is as good a time as any. Once that's done, though, and everything is packed down, he gets them all into the car and leaves the motel behind, along with the town and the state.

* * *

Phennapha Keacham lives in a small New York apartment, and he blinks when he sees her, because she's a lot younger than he expected. Sure, short and skinny no-curves women usually look younger than they are, but he's pretty certain that it's more than that, that she actually _is_ young.

He's tempted to ask for her mother, but decides against it and instead simply asks, "Phennapha Keacham?"

"Penny," she says, and he recognizes her voice from the phone. "Yeah. Are you John Winchester?"

"That's right." He nudges Dean to let go of his jacket and take a step forward. "And these are my boys, Dean and Sammy."

"Nice to meet you," she says, the polite phrase coming out as exactly that. She's not hostile, but not all that interested either. Her gaze rests on Dean for a moment, and she says, "I have a little girl about your age. Ing."

"A bit younger, I think," John says. "Dean's almost five now. Your daughter's three and a half, isn't she?"

Her eyes narrow with suspicion. "How do you know?"

"She was six months old when... it happened. Like Sammy."

"Right." Interest lost again. "Well, you'd better come in, then."

All things considered, little Ing is probably the one who benefits the most from the visit. She's drawn to Sammy from the moment she lays eyes on him, declaring him "her baby". Dean looks less than thrilled about this concept, but tolerates it, and the three kids play in relative peace while John talks to Penny.

He doesn't know what he has been expecting. More clues to find the thing that murdered Mary, perhaps. Or at the very least someone to talk to who understands, who's been there.

That's not who Penny is. It only takes him a few minutes to realize it, and yet he keeps the conversation up, to be polite or in vain hope that he's wrong – he doesn't know why.

She tells him her story, without hesitation or passion, like it's homework she learned a hundred years ago and has been repeating ever since. About the fire, how she entered the nursery, found her mother dead, grabbed Ing and ran for it. Every word his own terror, but retold as something of no more interest than the periodic table. It's obscene.

"Where did you find her?" he asks. "Your mother?"

She frowns. "In the nursery."

"Yes, but where? On the floor, leaned over the crib... on the ceiling?"

For the first time, there's emotion evident in Penny's face. Sheer, uncensored fear. "I never told anyone..."

"That's where I found Mary," he says. "On the ceiling, bleeding from her stomach." He makes a gesture over his own stomach to show the cut.

There's an indignated cry from the children – Ing has just run straight into Dean, who's standing still as a statue instead of running about like the game requires – but John barely sees them in the corner of his eye. His gaze is on Penny, who has paled considerably.

"Just like Mom," she says. "And your Sammy was six months old..."

"Exactly six months old," he says.

She shakes her head. "That's not possible. Accidents don't happen like that."

"Are you so sure it was an accident?"

She rises from her seat, turning her back on him. Now even Ing has stopped playing, standing by Dean with her mouth agape. "That's crazy talk. I can't afford any crazy talk."

Her voice is quivering, and John suddenly sees it, in a flash of understanding, what it is she has so carefully not said: "You saw something else that night, didn't you? Someone else."

"I didn't see him," she says. "I heard my mother saying my name – she thought I was in there with her. And then she screamed, and when I came..." She shakes her head.

"You never told the police?"

"All the doors were locked," she says, turning back to face him again. "The windows too. She always made sure of that. No one could have entered that we didn't know about. She found someone in the nursery, but she couldn't have found anyone in the nursery. She died on the ceiling, but she couldn't have died on the ceiling, because people don't die on _ceilings_."

"And so you just lied," he says slowly.

"I was seventeen with a baby," she says. "She was all mine – for the first time, she was all mine. I had the police and the OCFS swarming me, do you think for a second I would have told them a crazy story like that? I told them something they could believe, and they let me keep Ing. The house was still gone, Mom was dead, what difference did it make?"

"It never occured to you that this thing could kill again?"

She looks thoughtful. "No. It never did. It should have, I suppose." She sits down, offering him her hand. "I'm sorry... about your wife. Do you think if I'd said something, that I could have stopped it?"

He sighs. "Truth be told, I don't." It's not just comfort; he suspects that if she had said something, the result would have been exactly what she feared: a loony stamp on her and little Ing taken away.

"Mommy?" Ing tugs at her mother's slacks, not old enough to understand what's going on, but knowing that something is. "Mommy!"

Penny rises again and scoops her daughter up in her arms. "Do you and the boys want some milk and cookies?" she asks her.

"Yes, mommy!" she squeals, all worries instantly forgotten with the promise of milk and cookies. She's young enough for that to work. John catches Dean's expression and knows that he isn't. One day, some time soon, they're going to have to talk about what's going on. He puts that off, because the thought of what he will say terrifies him.

And so, for now, they have milk and cookies in Penny's kitchen, and maybe the day has been wasted for him, but he suspects that it hasn't been wasted for Penny, and that's got to count for something.

They're on their way out before he asks the question he's been meaning to ask for a while: "Not to be rude, but... your mother... were you two..."

She gives him that disinterested look, but then apparently changes her mind, because she says, "Have you ever had neighbors that played music in the middle of the night? Really loud, crappy music, and you just couldn't get them to stop?"

"Sure," he says, wondering who hasn't, and also what this has to do with anything.

Her gaze is fixed on something far away. "You go to bed at night, and you can't sleep, and it's driving you crazy, but it's the same every night, and finally you learn to sleep anyway. To sleep around it. And one night you wake up, and there's no more music. The neighbors have moved. There's never gonna be any music ever again, and now you can't sleep because of _that_. It drives you nuts for years, and then you miss it."

"I understand," he says, and he does. "I'm sorry."

Her eyes find their way back to his, and she nods. "I hope you find what you're looking for."

What _you're_ looking for, he notices. On his way down in the elevator, he holds the boys close but still feels more lonely than ever.

He can't do this alone. He won't.

But what else is there?

* * *

He keeps searching out newspaper articles, but resists the urge to call any of the other victims. The longer he goes on, the easier it gets – he tells himself that the trail is cold, that the people involved will be impossible to reach, and eventually, as the dates of the newspapers enter the twenties and beyond, that they're all bound to be dead.

He digs himself into the past, moving on to books on folklore and myths that are full of stories of fire, yet none that fit. He's so wrapped up in things that once were, that he's not ready when one day he opens the newspaper – _today's_ newspaper – and find the words "fire", "nursery", and "mother killed".

Ordinary rules no longer apply. There's no name in the paper, no matter where he looks, and so he buys another, and yet another. Still no names, but one of the papers give him the name of the Oregon town where the fire took place, and looking it up, he finds that it has only a couple of hundred thousand inhabitants – small enough that he's got to be able to find the right family just by asking around.

Life on the road is becoming second nature, for the boys as well as him: they sleep and play in the car and in the libraries, eat at diners, shower and sleep some more in motels. Dean's only sign of surprise is when they reach the town, throw their bags into the motel, and head for a playground instead of a library.

John figures that gossip is gossip anywhere, a playground's as good a place as any. It also has the added benefit of being a pretty distracting place for a child. Dean may not talk much, but he listens, and the questions John need to ask he doesn't want his son to hear.

Sammy half-stands in the carriage when he sees the playthings, clapping his chubby hands and laughing. John lifts him out and sets him down on the ground, asking Dean, "You two want to go play in the sandbox?"

Dean's eyes widen, and he stands for a moment looking at John, all deer in the headlights.

"It's all right," John says, sitting down on a long bench where a bunch of women are already seated. "I'll be right here. Take your brother."

Dean takes Sammy's hand, and the two of them walk off to the sandbox, Dean with slow considerate steps, Sammy with wobbly ones. It occurs to John that he remembers exactly when Dean took his first steps, but he has no idea when Sammy went from sitting to crawling and from crawling to walking. Somehow, he just did.

"Are you new in town?" the nearest woman asks.

He manages a smile, reminding himself that this is why he's here, to chit-chat with curious strangers, no matter how awkward it feels.

"That's right," he says. "Just arrived today, as a matter of fact. It seems like such a good place for the kids to grow up."

"Oh, it is," she assures him, and some other mothers lean in closer to say that it really, really is.

He offers a few more inane comments and then moves in for the big one: "Of course, the first thing I hear about moving in is someone dying in a fire, so I guess there are hazards here as well."

"Oh, the one down south?"

"I hear it was an electrical fault."

"Always a trouble with old houses like that."

"Which house was it?"

The bottom line is, he may not get a name, but he does get an address. He keeps the chitchat up for a while, but is actually relieved when Sammy starts wailing. There are swings at the playground, and Sammy likes swings, and obviously Dean isn't big enough to haul his brother up into one, much less give him speed.

So John swings his boys for a while, thinking about what to do next. Say that he does find the family – asking the neighbors or whatever. Say that he talks to them. What could he possibly tell them that would make them want to talk to him? He remembers what it was like, those first few weeks. Too many questions from too many people, and no one had anything real to offer.

He should show them enough respect to wait a little, until the cops and reporters have had their dues, at least.

By which time the trail will be cold again.

No. He can't. He takes the boys with him to the southern part of town and the old house that's not there anymore. Asks around, tries to come off as good-natured and affable. Having the boys around really helps with that, because what kind of a reporter would drag kids with him on a job?

The mother's dead, they tell him. The father had a breakdown. The baby's staying with the grandfather. Which grandfather? The father's father. And finally, there's a name: Ross Quentin.

Standing outside the Quentin door, he has a story ready, prepares the details in his head, but they all disappear when the door opens and he faces a man, not old, but with endless weariness written on his face.

He introduces himself, and the words stumble out: "I heard about your daughter-in-law... My wife died like that. I wanted to... I wanted to talk."

The man looks at him, and at the boys, and then lets them in without a word.

"You're Ross Quentin?"

"I am." His voice is soft and gravelly. "Can I get you anything? Coffee?"

"I'm fine, thanks."

"Juice for the children?"

He looks down at the boys. Dean makes no motion that he has heard, and Sammy's playing with his socks, but John nods. "That would be great. Thanks."

Mr. Quentin goes off to get the juice, and they all sit down in the livingroom – the boys in a sofa with some picture books, the adults in the other end of the room, speaking in low voices. There's a baby sleeping in a cot by the wall, smaller than Sam was when Mary died, but similar enough to be uncomfortable to watch.

John talks about Mary, slowly, haltingly, glossing over the details such as where he found her and what he's been doing ever since. Mr. Quentin says what he knows about the fire, which, as it turns out, isn't much.

"Hasn't your son told you...?" John asks.

"My son hasn't told anyone much," Mr. Quentin replies with a deep sigh. "He's taking this very hard."

"I'm sorry. I'm asking so many questions, but I have to know..."

"Because your wife died the way Linda did?" Mr. Quentin studies him closely.

"Yes. I suppose so. Yes. The fire in the nursery, the six-month-old baby..."

"Bobby's five months," Mr. Quentin says.

John stops short, staring at him.

"That's neither here nor there. If I understand you correctly, you fear that there may be some connection, some kind of fire hazard in nurseries, is that right?"

"That's one way of putting it," John says. _Five months?_

"But that wouldn't explain the other fires." Mr. Quentin shakes his head. "No. You're grasping at straws. I understand your feelings – I've been there – but I think you're wrong about this."

"What other fires?" John asks. "Nursery fires?"

"No." Mr. Quentin closes his eyes, pain evident in his face. "The forest fire, fifteen years ago, that killed my brother. Three years later, the fire that burned his widow's house down. Eight years ago, my wife's death. Two years ago, Melanie's face – that was in church. And now this."

John gets very still.

"No common cause," Mr. Quentin says. "No common denominator of any kind, except that it all happened to our family."

"Jesus," John breathes.

Mr. Quentin gives a humorless chuckle. "Sometimes... sometimes I think fire hates us. That it wants to destroy us any way it can." His gaze moves to something behind John, and he adds with apologetic kindness: "Just a joke."

But it isn't, John thinks. He turns to see what Mr. Quentin is looking at, and finds Dean standing a few feet away, holding both the juice glasses. Catching John's gaze, he holds up the glasses.

"Well, don't ask me," John says, more harshly than he feels. "Ask Mr. Quentin."

Dean holds up the glasses for Mr. Quentin to see.

"Well, of..." Mr.Quentin starts, but John shakes his head at him.

"Dean, ask _politely_."

There's a long pause, and then Dean murmurs in a barely audible voice, "Can we have some more juice, please?"

"Of course," Mr. Quentin says, rising from his chair. "There's more in the kitchen."

They all go into the kitchen, which puts a stop to the conversation for the time being. The boys have more juice, and now John accepts a cup of coffee, Mr. Quentin having once as well.

John supposes he could leave it at that. Whatever haunts the Quentin family, it's not the thing that took Mary. He doesn't have time to head into a road he knows is a dead end.

But something _is_ haunting the Quentin family. Bad luck, people would call it, but he doesn't believe in bad luck anymore, not this kind of bad luck. And as far as he knows, he's the only one around who doesn't. He doesn't have a clue how to help, but he knows more or less where to start looking. That gives him an advantage.

His choice is between going down the dead end or deserting them - a family with too much bad luck and a man who's forced to laugh when he reveals his fears so that people won't think he's crazy.

It's almost an hour before John drops the question, and they're already getting ready to leave. "So what _were_ the causes?"

Mr. Quentin has been smiling at Sammy's attempt to eat his own foot, but now his smile disappears. "Electrical fault. Lightning. A candle flaring up... and my wife fell into a bonfire." He sounds different saying that last thing. Doubtful.

"Fell how?"

He shrugs, closing his eyes for a second. "She tripped over something, I guess."

"Like what?"

"I don't know." He sounds defensive and – to John's ears – insincere.

"But you saw her fall? What did it look like?"

"It looked like the fire... snatched her in," Mr. Quentin says, his gaze far away.

"Maybe it did. You said that you think the fire hates you?"

He pulls himself back. "I didn't mean it."

"Yes you did." John continues before he can protest: "Here's what I think. I think something is targetting your family. Something dangerous and inhuman."

Mr. Quentin starts to laugh, and then stops. "You sound like Melanie," he says.

It takes a second to place the name. "Melanie who burned her face?"

"My daughter. She thinks a witch is doing it."

John frowns. "Why?"

A vague, helpless gesture. "Because she's thirteen and needs someone to blame."

Yes, he thinks, that's the reasonable explanation. The adult explanation. And if this is anything like it looks – the dead wrong explanation.

"May I speak to her?"

"She's at school."

"Well, can I leave the number to my motel so she can call me when she comes back?"

Mr. Quentin watches him for a very long time. "Of course," he says finally."But you don't really think...?"

"I'm not ruling anything out," he says and lifts Sammy into his carriage.

* * *

John settles in at the motel with his boys, and for the first couple of hours he's pretty much fine. He does some reading, orders takeout, and even helps Dean make an improvised igloo of chairs and pillows so the three of them can be eskimos. Why eskimos, he has no idea, but he dutifully goes kayaking and harpoons a whale. Sammy falls over laughing, and Dean skins the whale with serious concentration, so that John can almost _see_ the animal.

The clock turns four, then five, then six, and John tries to read, but can't make any sense of the words. He paces the room, fidgets with this thing and that. Should he call them, see what's going on? He goes to the phone, almost picks it up, and then sternly reminds himself that it's their fight, not his, and that the ball is in their court. He can't force some poor family to do things his way.

But, God, five fires... he'd be running so fast or fighting so hard...

When the door knocks, he almost jumps out of his skin, and he yanks it open so fiercely the girl on the other side flinches.

She's a lanky thing, slightly hunched over to make her seem smaller, dirt-blonde hair falling into her face, and... John can't help but wince, seeing the scars travelling from her forehead down onto her cheek, white spots spreading past her nose and chin, drooping eyelid hanging over a blueish, blind eye.

She looks up at him. Her other eye has long lashes and a steady gaze.

"John Winchester?" she asks.

He nods. "You must be Melanie. I was expecting you to call."

"Sorry." She bites her lip. "I had to come."

And come alone, as it turns out. He asks for her father, and she scoffs: "You want me to talk, right? He shuts me up. Every time."

He looks at her for a long time, and then opens the door wider without a word, letting her in.

In a way, he's with her father on this. He's faced the worried disbelief and suspicious glances when he tried to tell people the truth, and the thought of putting a child through that makes his stomach churn. But he also recognizes the fervor in the girl's speech, the rushed way she talks as if trying to get as much as possible out before the objections come.

Objections that he doesn't have – all he gives her are questions to prompt her further.

"The doctors said it couldn't have happened that way," she explains. "First of all that the candle couldn't have flared up that big, and then that even if it did, it shouldn't have burned me bad enough to do this." She gestures towards her face. "They thought someone had done something to it – like drenched it in something as a bad joke. But no one had. And they said maybe Anthea had picked up the wine bottle instead of the water bottle..."

"Anthea?"

"One of the girls in the choir. It was Lucy Blake's funeral mass, but the communion hadn't started yet, so Anthea poured the bottle of water in my face. Then Father Michael took off his chasuble and threw it over me, so they stopped the fire together. The chasuble was synthetic, so they thought maybe that was it, except it wasn't burned even a little bit. And Anthea is too smart to throw wine on a fire. Even if she wasn't, it's _red_ wine. Someone would have noticed."

"Yes," he agrees.

"It was the witch."

"Your father thinks that fire hates your family."

Her eye widens. "He said that? And didn't take it back?"

"He did take it back. But that's what he believes, isn't it?"

She nods, then shakes her head. "It's not true. If it was the fire, it would happen all the time, and it doesn't. I've been around _millions_ of fires. We all have. There's no way not to. No, it has to be a witch."

He likes her reasoning, but isn't convinced of the solution. "Why a witch?"

"Because of the lightning," she says. "Everything else, sure, someone could have done. Tampered with the candle, and with the electrics in Scott's house, and made Mom trip. But the only ones who can make lightning are witches and God, and God only punishes bad people."

He wishes that were true.

Something in his expression must give him away, because she says, accusingly, "You don't believe me."

"There are other things it could be besides witches."

"Like _what_?"

He watches her, knowing that if he tells her, he can never take it back. Lifting his gaze even further, he sees the boys over by the pillow igloo. Sammy is throwing himself on the pillows and Dean is watching him, seemingly occupied with the game, but John can tell that he's listening. God knows how much he understands; probably far too much.

"Ghosts," he says. "Curses. Demons. The Satirmu. Ask-wee-da-eed. Lots of creatures from all over the world, and most of them evil as hell from what I've read."

She stares at him, shock-still, and he tries to think of something to say, but nothing comes up. Sammy starts whimpering, and when John goes over to have a look, he finds that it's time for another diaper change.

He returns to find Melanie still immobile, and Dean sitting under the table. He pauses and shifts Sammy's weight on his arm, uncertain what to do.

Finally, she raises her head and asks him, desperate, "How do we stop it?"

From where he's standing, he can see that Dean raises his head too, and looks at him as if asking the same question. The difference is that Dean's expression shows every confidence that John has an answer to offer.

* * *

He pays for a full month at the motel, and takes to learning everything he can.

He learns that Ross Quentin doesn't believe his presence will make any difference, but is willing to humour him.

He learns that Scott Quentin is every bit as broken as his father says he is. John makes one visit to the hospital, which is awkward but promising – he's clearly a bright guy – right up to the point where John mentions the fire and Scott starts to hyperventilate. The only information he gets on the subject is a whispered sentence, when the nurse has already asked him to leave: _"She should never have married me."_

He learns that there's an adventure park two miles left of the motel where Dean can sometimes be convinced to climb around wild if John pays _really good attention_ to Sammy in the meantime. If John's attention drifts even for a minute, Dean will jump straight down and run back to them.

He learns that Bobby Quentin will make Sammy pout, because he's used to being the baby and this town ain't big enough for the two of them. When this happens, Ross will offer a rare smile. For a guy who's miserable all the time, he's got quite the sense of humor.

He learns that Joan Quentin lives in Phoenix and has no interest whatsoever in discussing her late husband or his family, thank you very much.

He learns that what scares Melanie most of all isn't dying. It isn't even her family dying. She looks down when she talks about it, her hair falling down over her face, as she describes the other children in the burn unit. "I know I look like shit," she says, panic making her voice shrill, "but they... I don't _ever_ want to end up like them. Not ever."

There's nothing he can say to that, no comfort, because lightning does strike twice.

He learns that he's still selfish enough to get scared, to wonder if his meddling is putting him in danger. Putting the boys in danger. Ross offers to babysit while John does research, and he hesitates, thinking, _what if there's a fire while I'm gone?_ He sees the resigned pain in Ross's eyes, but that's not what sways him to agree. It's just that he wonders what makes more sense – setting fire to the guy who's determined to stop you, or the guy who's too tired to do anything at all.

He learns that Morgan Quentin owned part of the forest, and died of a heart attack only months after the fire that put an end to his fortune as well as claiming his younger son. "Lucky bastard missed the rest," Ross puts it with cynical dryness. Melanie refers to her grandfather as "not a very nice man," with the cautious phrasing of someone who's retelling hearsay.

Yes, John learns everything about the Quentin family, and old Morgan seems a promising clue, but even so, no matter how hard John tries he can't find a ghost, or a curse, or a malevolent god. He looks at photographs, diaries, the sites of the different fires, and feels like he's running headfirst into a wall over and over again.

At the end of two weeks, he stands where the forest once was, at the edge of a large golf course, and curses his own thick head for refusing to come up with the answer. He turns around and heads for the exit, and that's when he sees the sign. Properly _sees_ it, notices it, not just casts a glance at it like he's done before.

Blake Golf Course.

Lucy Blake's funeral.

"Son of a bitch," he mutters, telling himself that it's just a name, it might be nothing, but still hurrying back to his car.

* * *

"Who owns Blake Golf Course?" he demands of Ross.

Ross lets him in, looking slightly puzzled, though by now he should be used to all kinds of questions. "Josiah Blake."

"Do you know him?"

"Not well. I knew his wife." Ross waves towards the kitchen. "I'm cooking, do you mind?"

"Sure, right." John follows him, and then prompts further. "His wife was Lucy Blake?"

"Yes."

"And it was during her funeral that Melanie..."

"Yes." Ross frowns. "Why are you asking?"

"I'm not sure." He rubbed his face and stood there for a while, watching Ross chop carrots. "How well did you know her?"

"She was Janyne's – my wife's – friend, really. Though she did live here for a while, before Janyne died. Rough patch in her marriage – they sorted it out later."

"What kind of rough patch?"

Ross laughs a little. "The regular kind, I guess. How should I know? Will you be staying for dinner?"

"Thanks, but..." John starts. Having someone else prepare his meal would mean some time off to relax between research periods, and he could use that. The boys would probably like it too. They're starting to get comfortable in this house, and Dean no longer looks at him as if he's committing a major act of betrayal every time he leaves the house.

Doesn't matter. The thought of sitting at someone else's dinner table still gives him hives.

"Think about it," Ross suggests. "It's no trouble."

John manages to smile. "I will. Are you sure you can't tell me anything more about the Blakes?"

"Like what?"

"Like... anything."

For the next twenty minutes, he listens to simple, mundane facts that Ross shakes out from the corners of his memory. Then he gives up. Another dead end, based on coincidence. Instead, he goes upstairs to fetch the boys.

They're sitting in Melanie's room on a bed with surprisingly childish Muppet bedsheet. Sammy's got his thumb in his mouth and is almost falling asleep, but Dean listens with a concentrated expression to Melanie, who's reading from a book.

"'Sweet my eye,' said Moominpappa, inspecting his bitten tail." Little Bobby, who's sitting in Melanie's lap, grabs hold of his aunt's hair, and she tucks it behind her ears so she can see to read. "'She's the silliest, nastiest, badly-brought-uppest child I've ever seen, with or without a head.'"

John snorts, and Dean's head whips up so fast Sammy wakes up slightly and makes a disgruntled sound. Dean pats his cheek reassuringly, but he's already on his way down from the bed, knocking the book over in the process. Once on the floor, he rushes over to John and buries his face in the fabric of his father's pants.

John strokes Dean's hair and tells Melanie, "Sorry. He's like that sometimes."

"Yeah," she says without surprise. She opens her mouth to say something further and then bites her lip, frowning a little. Finally, she blurts out, "Was it quick?"

"Was what quick?"

"Your wife."

For a second, he hates her deeper than he has thought himself capable of hating anybody – certainly not this harmless, scarred child. Then he sighs and answers softly, "Yes. It was."

She nods, looking down and pulling at her hair. "So was Linda."

There's a long silence, during which Sammy wakes up completely and picks up the book, poking Melanie with it. "Wuffa!" he orders her. "Wuffa, wuffa!"

Sammy's got quite a few words by now – they just aren't English. There's no mistaking the meaning of this one. He wants more story.

"Yeah, yeah," Melanie says, and John glimpses a smile between the curtains of hair. It makes her face almost pretty. "Dean, do you want to hear the rest of the story too?"

Dean looks up, but at John, not at Melanie.

"Go on, kid," John tells him. "I'll stay and listen too. Actually, we..." He halts, and then reluctantly continues: "We could stay for dinner, if you'd like."

Dean gives him a long, searching look and then nods, slowly letting go and returning to the bed. He puts his arms around Sammy and they both settle down, ready tolisten.

John keeps his promise and stays in the room, even though storytime isn't really his thing. At first, Melanie's reading is stilted and uncomfortable, but soon she seems to forget that there's an adult in the room and relaxes. So does he.

There's only a few paragraphs left of the story, and Melanie moves on to the next one, about creatures sailing the sea without ever reaching whatever it is they search for. She tells it well, but the story makes him shudder, and he wonders if it's quite suitable for such small kids. They don't seem to mind, though. Sammy's eyes are starting to drift shut again, and he's leaning heavily against his brother. Dean doesn't take his gaze off John for a second, but it's light and calm, almost happy. Even little Bobby, who couldn't possibly understand more than a few words of the story, seems perfectly content.

When Ross shows up to tell them dinner is ready, John realizes that he never actually gave him an answer to whether they'd stay or not.

"Don't worry about it," Ross says when he tries to apologize. "I made enough for all of us, just in case."

During dinner, Melanie asks, shyly, "Any luck?"

John sighs and shakes his head. "I thought I was onto something with the Blakes, but..."

"The Blakes? _Lucy_ Blake?"

"I was thinking more in the line of her husband. I thought there might be a connection, what with the golf course and the funeral. But I can't find anything."

"Severe lack of motive," Ross says, scooping up some mashed potatoes.

Melanie looks thoughtful. "Didn't Granddad screw him over once?"

"Language, Mel," Ross says. "And not that I know of. Who told you that?"

"I can't remember. Lucy, I think." She frowns hard. "It was a really long time ago. I don't even know if it's true."

"Knowing your granddad, it probably is." He thinks about it. "Might serve as a motive for the forest fire, I suppose. But the rest of it?"

"Revenge," John says. His heart is pounding very fast.

"Against _us_?" Ross sounds very sceptic.

"Sins of the father," Melanie says, her face tense.

"Can you really see Josiah Blake spending fifteen years wrecking vengeance on us for something a dead man did?"

John watches Melanie very carefully. She sighs and shakes her head. "In Agatha Christies, you should never trust people just because they seem nice," she says, but without conviction.

"Life isn't like Agatha Christies," her father says.

"No," John says slowly, "but the old lady had a point there. _Can_ you trust a guy just because he seems nice?"

Father and daughter watch each other in a silence that drags on until Sammy has had enough of it. He pounds his empty plate on the table and declares in rhythm with the bangs, "Effa looba mimma nun!"

John takes the plate and fills it up with mashed potatoes and green peas. "I'll take that as a no?" he asks the Quentins.

"Listen," Ross says, "whatever it is you plan on doing..."

"Right now, I just plan on checking the man out. See if there's anything to find."

"Can I come with?" Melanie asks, looking surprised at her own question.

John glances at Ross, who just raises his eyebrows and takes a sip of water.

"It's not gonna be very interesting," John tells Melanie. "I'll be searching newspapers and stuff. Boring as hell, most likely."

"I don't care." Her voice is low but determined – more determined than her shivering chin. "I have to do something. I can't just sit here."

After a moment's thought, he nods. "All right. You come along. Maybe you can keep an eye on the boys for me."

An odd expression comes on her face, and then she smiles. "One, I think I can manage."

He's so caught up in his research plans that he's halfway out the door before he gets the joke.

* * *

There are definite advantages to having a workplace babysitter. For the first time, he feels he can relax. The boys are _right there_, he can see them if he turns his head, and yet he doesn't have to watch them all the time. He can even leave them in the car while he talks to the archivists on the local newspaper.

After he's said good-bye to Melanie and put the boys to bed, he sits up most of the night piecing information together, comparing his notes on the Blakes with his notes on the Quentins. It's promising, very promising, but there are still pieces missing, and the next day he takes a shower, puts on his nicest suit, and heads over to the bank. He almost gets caught bluffing his way through, and decides that as soon as he's done here, he should look into getting some fake IDs. Maybe a fake credit card to match – he's starting to run out of money, and the way this is going he won't be able to get a steady job any time soon.

Leaving the bank, the sound of his son crying sends him racing across the street. He yanks the back car door open, and both Melanie and Dean flinch. Not Sammy, though – he's crimson-faced and absolutely furious.

"What's going on?" John growls. Sammy's okay, they're all _okay_, but it takes a while to start breathing properly again, and it doesn't put him in the best of moods.

"He needs changing," Melanie says.

"So change him!"

"Where?"

John looks around, but of course there's no public bathroom or anything like it nearby. He curses and takes the necessary items from the trunk, putting Sammy on top of it.

The moment he's rid of the stinky diaper, Sammy takes a deep breath and stops crying. John wipes him off and gives him a new diaper, and when he looks down, he finds Dean standing right next to them.

"Here you go," he says, lifting Sammy down to Dean. He wipes his hands off with a washcloth and watches as Dean half-leads half-carries his brother back inside.

"I'm sorry," Melanie says from the back seat when John gets back into the car.

"Try thinking one step further next time," he says.

She bows her head down. "Did you find anything?"

"Maybe, yeah. Could you hand me my journal?"

She does, and he sits right there in the car, making the final comparisons.

It's almost too easy. Bastard didn't even bother to hide the connections, which makes John almost suspect that he's innocent after all – but of course, by regular standards this isn't proof. It's not even a proper motive, except, as Ross said, for the first fire. And when the first fire happened, Josiah Blake was in Virginia.

No reason you can't do a spell from Virginia.

"M'hungry," Dean mutters, and John looks up, bewildered. How long have they been sitting there? If Dean's hungry enough to _say_ he's hungry, it must have been quite some time.

"There's a Chinese place two blocks away," Melanie says. "Want me to get some takeout?"

"Please," he says, handing her his wallet.

By the time she returns with the food, he has started working on the timeline. They all sit down on the curb, and he juggles his journal and the box of Chinese all through the meal, until the point where he spears his final bamboo shoot on the chopstick, underlines the dates he's found, and puts the box down with a "Son of a bitch."

"You got something?" Melanie asks with her mouth full.

"You could say that." He reads off his notes. "April 1969, Josiah Blake is forced to declare bankrupcy after a series of bad financial decisions. His financial advisor is the head of Wellside Corporations – one Morgan Quentin."

"He did screw him over," Melanie says softly.

"I guess he did. August 1969, there's the forest fire than kills Jake Quentin. Hot summer, no one's surprised – but Wellside Corporation suffers severe financial losses which it never really recovers from. Morgan Quentin retires, and dies a few months later. _September_ 1969, Blake catches a lucky break as his new retail company starts doing really well. It continues to do well until 1971, when there's a dip in the finances. Fortunately, after her house is struck by lightning, Joan Quentin decides to sell the land – which mainly consists of part of the old forest."

"The golf course."

"Exactly. Josiah Blake buys it, and has had nothing but financial successes ever since. January 1976, Lucy Blake files for a divorce. March..." He throws a glance at her. "March was your mom. By April, Lucy has changed her mind."

"1982," Melanie says with a quivering voice, "February. Lucy dies. I get like this." She bites her lip. "What happened in March?"

"I couldn't find anything for March," he says. "November, however, there's the birth of one Simon Blake – I'm guessing grandson."

"Oh wow," she says bitterly. "I made a baby. Bit young for it," she adds with an attempt at laughter.

"I'm sorry."

"And now? Why Linda?"

He sighs and hands her the copy of the obituary he found. "Another baby. Stillborn."

Tears well up in her eyes. "She didn't make that baby die!" she says vehemently. "I didn't make Lucy die – I _liked_ her! Mom didn't make her leave her husband, none of us had anything to do with anything except Granddad, and it isn't _fair_." She's crying outright now, in big angry sobs.

"It's not revenge," he says. "Not just revenge. He's transferring his misfortunes to you guys."

Sammy starts crying too, upset by the tension even though he doesn't understand the causes. Even Dean's starting to go teary-eyed.

"All right, listen," John says, figuring he has to do something. "It's only 3PM, he's bound to be at work. I'll go check his house, see if I can find anything iffy. At least now we know that he's doing it. We figure out how, and I think we've got a fair chance of stopping it."

She's still crying as hard as ever. He shifts a little. "You want me to call your dad?"

She shakes her head and does her best to stifle the sobs. "No, it's okay." The smile she offers him is even more skewed than usual. "Really. It's okay."

* * *

In the end, he leaves the children in the car while he breaks into Josiah Blake's house. For a guy so well-off, he doesn't have much in the way of security. There are locks, of course, but no alarm and no watchdogs. John figures that a guy who can call down lightning on his enemies doesn't really have much to worry about.

Jesus H Christ, what's he getting himself into?

He walks through a nice normal hallway leading to a nice normal kitchen, opens doors to nice, normal rooms and closets, until he comes upon the door that leads to the basement stairs.

Well, if _he_ had a deep dark secret he'd certainly keep it in the basement. What better place for it? He walks down the rough stone stairs, close to the wall since there's no railing and he doesn't want some grabby thing to come at him from below. Not that there's any proof of grabby things, he sternly reminds himself. Just fire. No reason to get paranoid.

He reaches the bottom safely and starts rummaging through boxes, old baby carriages, wrapped skis, and everything else he can find down there. The trouble is, he has no idea what he's looking for, and it all looks like just the kind of junk people usually store in basements. There's a lot of it, too. When he next looks at his watch, it's almost four o'clock, and he hasn't searched everything yet. Figuring he should at least check out the other floors as well, he gives up and heads upstairs again.

Okay, basement didn't work, where else can you have your big secrets?

Attic. Obviously. John runs up the main staircase and then looks around like crazy before he finds a ceiling hatch with a fold-down stairway. Getting up is a trick of balance, but as soon as his head reaches past the ceiling, he knows he's hit jackpot.

There's a large egg-shaped flame in the middle of the attic, and he can see something upright inside it, but not what it is. Heaving himself up, he walks further into the bare room, trying to see the thing up close.

There's nothing else in the room, no furniture or even boxes like in the basement, but it's clearly well-visited, because everything is clean. Not a speck of dust anywhere. Even the air is fresh, and surprisingly cold, even when he gets closer to the fire. It flames, but it doesn't burn – or, he corrects himself, it doesn't burn anything _there_.

He wonders if what he's seeing is the spell doing its work, if the death of Linda Quentin is still pouring good luck into Blake's life, or if it's always like this. A big egg, burning for a decade and a half around a... He steps around the fire, trying to get a good look at the thing inside.

It's definitely human-shaped, though less than half the size. Some kind of sculpture, and though it looks wooden, it doesn't burn either. There are some kind of symbols on the floor too, though they're not in any language or tradition he can decipher.

Another step closer, and the fire suddenly lunges at him, so close he can hear his hair frizzle. He balks as fast as he can manage, hissing, "Jesus Christ!"

The fire... flinches, is the best he can describe it, and he continues to run backwards, trying to think up something religious to say. "Our Father, who art in Heaven, hallowed be thy name..."

He doesn't know if it's working, but the fire doesn't follow him any further as he hurries down the stairs, stopping only to close the shutter before getting the hell out of the house.

The kids are still in the car, and he jumps inside, starting the engine before even breathing, "You all okay?"

"Yeah." Melanie leans forward between the seats. "Are you? Your face is red."

He touches his cheek and winces when his fingertips reach the sore skin. A glance into the rear view mirror confirms what he already knows – his face looks as if it's been out in the sun too long. "Had a bit of run-in with the source."

"Fire?"

"Yeah. I was lucky." His hands start trembling on the wheel. How many times can he be lucky?

Sammy starts crying, and John reaches over to pat his head in what he hopes is a soothing manner.

"It's bad, isn't it?" Melanie asks.

He briefly considers lying to her, soothing her the way he does Sammy. "Yes," he admits.

"Can you fix it?"

He's about to answer 'I have no freaking clue,' but his gaze catches Dean's in the mirror, and he clenches his teeth around the reply.

With their current speed, it's no more than ten minutes until he pulls up outside the Quentin home. He hurries the other inside, where Ross meets them, looking confused and worried.

"Did you find anything?"

"You bet," John says, closing the door behind him. "Got any salt?"

* * *

They put salt circles in the whole house and iron in their pockets while Melanie fills Ross in on the day's events. Once they're done, John tells them both what he found in Blake's house.

"So what does that mean?" Ross asks. "How do you stop it?"

"I don't know," John says. "I don't even know what it is yet." He walks around the living room, thinking, wishing he was anywhere else but in some picket fence home where he can't even do research.

A thought occurs to him, and he asks, "Can I use your phone? Long distance?"

"Of course."

"Great."

He searches out the right list of numbers from his phone book and makes the first call, trying to sound as calm and professional as he can. "Hello, reference desk? My name is John Winchester. I'm working on a dissertation on occultism, and I've run into this rite..."

There's a snort from Ross at that, but he ignores it and rattles off what he knows, describing it as if he'd seen it in a book rather than set up for real in a bare attic in Oregon. The woman on the other end asks a couple of questions, and then promises to call him back as soon as she's got an answer.

There are ten or twelve reference libraries on his list. A couple of them question why he's call all the way from Oregon, but all promise to call him back. After the last one, he sits down with Sammy on his lap and does Five Little Piggies on his toes. It's half-hearted, and Sammy seems more puzzled than amused, but he's got to do something or else this'll drive him crazy.

"Are we safe?" Melanie asks. "Will the salt and iron keep us safe?"

"I hope so," John says. Salt and iron work on a lot of things, after all.

"What about Scott?"

John hadn't even thought of Scott. Now he nearly groans out loud when he realizes that he'll have to go over to the hospital and convince them to let him pour out salt in their patient's room and put iron in his pockets. Not to mention convince Scott himself.

"I'll go over there," Ross says. "He'll listen to me."

That, of course, is a much better solution. John nods. "Good luck. And, uh... it flinches at the name of God."

"I'll remember that."

* * *

He steps out of the bathroom and almost bumps into Dean, who's standing just outside the door. "Hey, dude. You all right?"

There's a second of the usual wide-eyed silence, and then Dean asks, "What's the salt for?"

John blinks at the sudden question. "Protection. Against bad things."

Dean nods thoughtfully. "Did the bad things take that girl's face?"

It's the explanation of a five-year-old, but close enough to the truth that John says, "Yes. They did."

"And Mom?"

The mere mention hurts more than it did to detail his wife's death to the police all those months ago. Dean has never asked about Mary. Not once. But this is more than he's ever said since that day, and so John forces himself to answer: "Yes."

Dean furrows his brow, and he's silent, but John can tell that there's more to be said, and so he waits.

"Will you help the girl get her face back?"

John rubs his face. "I don't think I can, Dean. I'll just make sure she won't get hurt again... or her dad, or anyone else. I'm keeping them all safe." That's almost a promise, he thinks.

Dean looks at him as if he still has another question, and John can guess what it is: Will you get Mom back? He braces himself for it, and for the answer he knows he has to give.

But the question never comes. Dean walks back into the livingroom and sits down at the piano with Sammy. It's quite a noise they make together, but at least they make it somewhat easier to avoid thinking about what's out there.

* * *

Ross returns, and they all have dinner in jittery silence, waiting for the phone to ring. When it does, Melanie jumps up and runs to the phone before any of the others even have time to put the cutlery down. When she hands over the phone to John, her face is practically beaming.

"A Ms. Watson for you, FBC library."

He takes the phone, and his voice is a bit hoarser than he likes: "Yeah, hello, John Winchester speaking."

"Mr. Winchester?" He remembers this one from before – that haughty voice is hard to forget. It warms up, though, as she starts detailing the things she has learned. He doesn't have his journal at hand, so he writes things down on the little doodling pad by the phone.

"Eris," she says. "Goddess of strife and envy. You might be familiar with her from the story of Paris, where..."

"Yeah, I've heard of her," he says, which is a lie, but he needs to get to the vital part. "So how do you counter it?"

There's a pause at the other end. "Well, that would depend on the nature of the rite. It's set up to harm one's enemies, and the caster chooses the weapon in question... you said the sphere was made of fire?"

"That's right."

"Right. Well, then the person wishing to break the curse must wait until after sunset. Then he would first need a separate spell to keep the fire at bay, and once he gets close to the actual Eris figure, he is to draw a white circle of protective symbols around it, and then destroy the figure. Smashing it, melting it... whatever would apply."

"What kind of protective symbols?" he asks, gripping the phone hard.

"Now, here's the interesting bit. While Eris is a classical goddess, the _rite_ is described as being used in the seventeenth century. The author claims that there's a variation of symbols in use, but that the most common seem to be a combination of Greek crosses and Salvus pentagrams."

After all his time with books on mythology, he knows what a Greek cross is, but he isn't so clear about Salvus pentagrams. The questions he asks probably blow his cover, but though Ms.Watson sometimes sounds trouble and often surprised, she answers them all in a patient and polite manner.

"And the spell against fire?"

"I'm afraid it isn't specified."

"Well, do you know any good spells against fire?"

The pause that follows drags on for so long he fears she's going to hang up on him.

"The Sator square comes to mind," she finally says. "Of course that's a different tradition..."

He doesn't care about the traditions, he cares about getting something that works, but obviously he can't say that. He asks for the Sator square and gets it, but she sounds _really_ surprised that he doesn't know it already. All things considered, he's pretty surprised himself, but better late than never. He carefully notes it down and once he has hung up duplicates the note for Ross.

"Write this everywhere you can think of," he says, handing it over. "It should last you the night, at least."

* * *

John ends up writing the Sator on his own body in black marker before he leaves, slowly tracing the letters upside-down. He has no idea if that will be enough to keep him safe in what he's about to do, but it's a comfort never the less. The axe on the passenger seat is another comfort – he lets his fingers run over it as he's waiting at a red light, a touch soft enough to be called a caress.

He's halfway to Blake's house when he suddenly _knows_ he's not alone. He can't explain how – there's no sound that he has noticed, or anything in the rear view mirror – but he's certain of it, and he stops the car with a jerk.

"All right," he says. "Come out of there."

A pause, and then Melanie slowly gets up from the car floor.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?" he asks.

"Coming with you." She says it with such conviction that he has to smile, despite his anger. Damn it, there's no time for this. He has to be there and set up by midnight.

"Not gonna happen." He starts the car and turns it around, ready to take her home.

"Why not? It's my fight too. More mine than yours. And you're going in the wrong direction."

"I'm taking you home."

"You can't do that!"

"Watch me."

She leans forward, arms resting on the back of the passenger seat. "If you do, I'm gonna sneak out again, and I'll follow you there on my _bike_ if I have to."

"Listen girlie," he says, really pissed off now, "if I have to tie you up like a Christmas turkey to keep you home, I swear I will."

"Why?" she shouts. "Give me one good reason why!"

"Because you're a kid!" he shouts back. "Because it's dangerous, and because I'm not going to tell your dad I got you killed tonight!"

"Oh, so it's dangerous?" Tears of rage are streaming down her face. "Is it more dangerous than my _life_? Every single day since I was born, this guy could've killed me. Him and his freaking goddess! So basically, I'm old enough to get killed, old enough to have hundreds of stupid surgeries, but I'm not old enough to _do_ something about it. Is that what you're saying?"

"Yes!" he shouts, and then, as he hears his own words, "Yes. I guess that is what I'm saying."

He stops the car, turns around, and looks at the weeping girl. "If I did let you come along, what did you plan on doing there?"

She draws a deep, shaky breath and swallows her tears. "I'm not asking to do the magic stuff. I wouldn't know how. But I could keep watch, or... be a distraction, or something."

"He's gonna be there. You'll be putting yourself in danger – and yes, I mean more danger than you are already."

"Yeah, but it's better," she says softly. "A better kind of danger. You're thinking about it, aren't you?"

He nods reluctantly.

"So what can I do?"

A couple of options come to his mind, but none of them are things he'd want to subject her to.

"Listen," she says when he doesn't answer. "Forget that I'm a kid. Forget what you're gonna have to tell dad if I... if I die. What do you need done?"

He sighs deeply, hating every second of this. "Distraction sounds good. Keep him away from the attic. Do you think you can do that?"

She nods. "I can ring the doorbell, tell him I've been hurt or something."

"I'm not sure that's a good idea," he says with a frown. "He hates your family, and if I left any signs this afternoon and he's suspecting something..."

"He'll be suspecting Dad," she says. "I'm just a kid, remember?"

This is bad. This is very, very bad, but he has to admit that having a decoy will make his job much easier, and so in the end he agrees. His pen is shaking so much when he writes the spell on her stomach that the _Arepo_ goes all wonky, and he asks her to turn around so he can write it on her back as well, just in case.

He watches her approach the house, ring the doorbell, and give an impersonation of injured little child that's evidently good enough for Blake to let her in (the tears probably help). The door closes behind her. Decoy in place, time to get moving.

He feels like a fucking murderer.

* * *

There's no one to stop him when he sneaks in and heads for the attic. He can hear voices downstairs; Melanie's sounds upset, but not like she's about to be set on fire by a vindictive wizard, and so he goes on, making his footsteps as quiet as he possibly can. It's not as easy on wooden floors as it was on soft jungle ground, but he's a stealthy guy, he manages.

The egg is still flaming high as ever – higher, even, as if it knows something's up. He gets closer, but not too close. A few inches away from where the fire flared up last time, he bends down and starts writing on the floor with chalk: _Sator Arepo Tenet Opera Rotas_, in twenty-five little squares forming a big one. He thinks the fire flickers, but says the words out loud, just to make sure.

The part of the fire that's facing him fades and dies. He can see the statue clearly now, a woman with big black wings who's hand is up by her face as if she's thumbing her nose at him. Since there's still fire on her other sides, it looks rather like she's standing in one of those egg chairs.

"All right," he mutters, moving to another side of her. "If that's what it takes."

He has to do the spell six times before the fire dies down, and then there's still the protective circle to finish. Ms. Watson didn't say how dense it has to be, and so he draws the symbols small and close together, hoping and praying that he'll have time to make it to the end.

When the last of the pentagrams meets the first of the crosses, he puts down the piece of chalk and picks up the axe, sending it smashing down on that damned statue.

There's no flash of lightning or anything like that. There _is_ a slight breeze of wind, and moments later a high-pitched scream from downstairs. A girl's scream.

He starts running, halting only to pick up the pieces of the statue – no way is he leaving them behind to be put back together. First chance he gets, he's going to chop them into splinters.

They're on the stairway between the first and second floor. Blake has evidently tackled Melanie, because she's half-lying across the stairs, kicking him in the face any chance she gets. Attagirl.

He doesn't wait to get close to them, instead he tosses one of the statue halves like a football. It hits Blake's head and then bounces off him. Blake grunts and his grip goes slack for a split second – and that's all the time Melanie needs to get loose. She gives him another hard kick and scrambles for the piece of statue, reaching it just as he grabs her legs again.

She takes hold of the statue with both hands at lets it down on Blake's head. The blows she manages aren't hard, but they're many and desperate, and by the time John reaches them, the man's already looking groggy. John takes his own remaining statue half and backhands Blake with it, making him slump unconscious.

Melanie pulls her legs up under her and stands up.

"He's not dead, is he?" she asks shakily.

John's pretty sure he isn't, but bends down to check, just to reassure her. "Nope. He's out cold, that's all."

She nods. Her face is so cut-up and bruised red that even the part that's not scarred seems disfigured, and yet somehow she looks better than before – more _alive_. Taller, even.

"It's over, then?"

"I guess so." He lifts his half of the statue and grins. "Want to go hack these things into tiny pieces?"

Her grin is wide and wicked. "You bet."

* * *

They reach the house, and when Ross answers the door, John triumphantly holds up his half of the statue. "Mission accomplished!"

Ross looks straight past him at Melanie and rushes up to her, clutching her tightly. "What the _hell_ happened?" He tilts his daughter's face up, shakes his head, and turns to John: "What did you do to her!?" His voice is quivering with fury.

"I'm sorry," John says. In the light from the house, he can see that her bruises are starting to darken.The effect is pretty startling. "I thought..."

"Dad, he didn't do anything," she protests. "It was Mr. Blake. He tried to strangle me, and I hit him with this..."

There's not a chance for John to get a word in after that. Father and daughter stand yelling at each other, louder and louder, and even on the rare occasions when either turns to him – one for support, the other to tell him to get the hell out of their house – the volume doesn't reach a low enough level for him to point out that he's not leaving without his sons. Or, for that matter, that it's one AM and they're standing out in the front yard shouting about witches. He's surprised the neighbors haven't shown up already.

There's a shadow appearing in one of the upstairs window, then a face. Dean's face, small and worried. John raises his hand in a slight wave, to show that he's okay.

"If I may..." he starts.

"Shut up and get out!" Ross hollers. "Why are you even here?"

Melanie has evidently followed John's gaze at the window, because she shouts, "Dad, don't be so dense! His kids are up there, do you expect him to just drive off without them?"

"Fine," Ross says, voice for once down to almost normal volume. "Go fetch your children. After that, I swear to God, I never want to see your face again."

There's not much else John can do but head upstairs for Dean and Sammy. The latter's still asleep, and has trouble staying awake even as John gets him seated in the car.

Truth be told, he thinks Ross's reaction is more than justified. If it were his kids, out on some stint like that, he'd kill the guy who let them do it.

He can't apologize, though, because he's not sorry – not even remotely. So instead, he packs the kids silently in the car and drives back to the motel.

After working weeks on this thing, it feels weird that it's all over. He'll have to think hard about where to go next.

* * *

It's late afternoon when the knock comes on the door. John's in the middle of mapping out places where he might get a fake ID and credit card, but he quickly shuffles his finds into a drawer and opens the door.

It's Ross and Melanie. She's got her hair tied back in a ponytail, which showcases both the old scars and the new bruises – looking even worse than last night.

"Hi," she says, beaming at him.

"Hi there."

Ross is standing behind her, with a glum expression on his face. "She wanted to say goodbye," he says. "And... as she keeps reminding me, you did save our lives. So thank you, I guess."

"You're welcome."

There's a long awkward pause, and at the end of it, Ross gives Melanie a pointed glance. She huffs.

"Do you have to _be_ here?"

Ross scowls and the two of them stand glaring at each other for a while before he sighs and gives a shrug. "Five minutes."

She nods, and since this is obviously important to her for whatever reason, John waits until Ross is no longer in view before asking, "Did you need him to leave before you could say goodbye?"

"Before I could show you this." She takes a wrinkled, folded-up paper and a pill box from her jeans pocket.

He unfolds the paper, and it turns out to be a photocopy of a page from an old book.

"I kind of skipped school to look it up," she says softly. "Don't tell Dad."

He shakes his head, reading through the page. It's a description of something called geasa, which as far as John can tell are a magical way of ordering people to do something. The page even has a couple of descriptions of different methods to do them.

"I'm gonna put one on Mr. Blake," Melanie says. "So he can never hurt our family ever again. I'll use this."

She opens the pill box and holds it open for John to see. Inside there's a small piece of familiar-looking wood, with dark stains on it. Blood stains.

"Good thinking," he says. "But if you can... I don't want you to bite off more than you can chew or anything."

"What?"

"If it's not too hard, make it so he can never hurt anyone."

She thinks about it, and then suggests, hesitantly, "How about I do the small geas first, and if there's no trouble I'll do a bigger one?"

"Sounds good to me."

He spots Ross coming back down the corridor and nods at Melanie not to say anything further. When she turns and sees her father, her jaw sets, and she says: "You're too early!"

"No, I'm not." They're wearing twin expressions, and John has to bite his lip not to start grinning.

"I have to say goodbye to Dean and Sammy too."

Ross grudgingly agrees, crossing his arms like he's standing guard outside the Godfather's private offices. John stands aside so Melanie can go inside the room, where Dean and Sammy are sitting in a corner drawing with crayons.

She gives them both quick hugs and tells them "bye". Dean also gets a "thank you", which makes John frown, since he can't figure out the reason.

"Are you coming?" Ross asks before he has a chance to question her on it.

"Yeah, sure." She stops by the doorway, looks up and John and says, "Bye, then."

Her face is filled with such puppy-love adoration that he laughs a little and ruffles her hair. "Bye, kid."

* * *

They're on the road, and John asks Dean, "Why did she thank you?"

He can see Dean in the rear view mirror, looking straight at him, but there's no reply.

"Dean?"

Dean turns to Sammy and starts tickling his stomach. John waits, but apart from Sammy's gurgling laughter, the backseat is quiet.

He sighs. "Five years is way too young to start keeping secrets from your old man, kid."

Dean grins – a wide, mischievous grin that makes John blink and look in the mirror again, just to make sure.

"All right," he says softly. "Have it your way."

* * *

Thing is, Oregon might've been a dead end where Mary's death is concerned, but he learned something. Learned a whole lot of somethings – geasa, Eris, the Sator square... stuff that might just come in useful. Not to mention that getting into that guy's house and doing the spell makes for a more well-rounded research than just sitting around with books.

If he's going to stop the thing that killed Mary, he needs to be prepared. Next time the paper has something that screams weirdness, even though it has nothing to do with nurseries or even fire, he turns the car around and finds the place where it happened.

He packs the trunk full of weapons and amulets. Back in war mode, except now he's fighting things that he never believed to be real, and most of them you can't just shoot in the head and leave behind.

Also, the civilians are a hell of a lot different. You have to practically shove a ghost down their throat before they notice anything weird, and even then, they tend to act like it's all some horror movie. Sometimes they cast him as the hero, and if that adoring expression was kind of endearing on a child, it's freaking creepy on adults.

Creepier still when it's combined with a promise of sex. First time he sees that, he damn near bolts out the door.

Yeah, sure, it's tempting too. She's pretty – tall, with black glossy hair and curves like you wouldn't believe. And it's not like she's asking anything of him. It's gratitude sex she offers; if he stuck around playing the boyfriend she'd probably find it more annoying than anything else.

But he can't. Can't do that to Mary, no matter if she's dead. Not with some demon-hunter groupie of all people.

It's almost a year before he's lonely, tired and horny enough to let the part of him that whispers _yes I can_ win out. Her name is Eliesa, and she's got ten years and at least fifty pounds on Mary, but somehow that makes it better. He helps her narrowly escape a werewolf (a freaking _werewolf_!) but she's looking for a fuck, not a savior, and those are terms he finds he can accept.

For all its brevity, he has a pretty good time. She tells him clearly how she likes it and does her best to please him in return, even when his wishes aren't terribly articulate. If sometimes all the instructions make him feel like he's parking a car, that's compensated by the sheer sex, because dear God, it's been far too long.

When they're done, he lies next to her in the bed for a while, kissing her frizzy hair and thinking too many thoughts at once. Finally, he sits up with a sigh and reaches for his clothes. "I gotta go," he tells her.

"An early meeting to go to?" she asks with mild sarcasm.

"No. Just no babysitter."

* * *

That morning, he wakes up early – far, far too early – from Sammy's crying. He recognizes it as an 'I'm bored' cry, rather than one that indicates an actual problem, and at first he groans and buries his head in the pillow. It's just a temporary respite, though, and soon he rolls out of bed, reluctant but ready to deal with the problem.

By the time he gets there, Sammy's cries have already faded to sobs and hickups. Dean is sitting up in bed with him, singing: "...at a time like this, maia rissas is slow..."

The familiar tune makes John's heart ache. _God, Mary, what have I done?_ He clears his throat, making Dean jump. "It's 'my resistance is low'."

Dean just looks at him.

"It means you can't resist something," John says. "My resistance is low."

Dean tries singing it, slowly. "My resistance is low."

"That's right."

Sammy's almost asleep now, but Dean continues singing, and John closes his eyes, trying to hold the tears back.

After Dean gets to "I want to be adored more than you'll ever know," he halts and asks, "What's next?"

"I'm going overboard with a capital O," John sings. Uttering the words, he can see Mary singing the same passage. Her arms are spread out and her mouth formed into an exaggerated O, eyes glittering under half-closed lids.

He opens his own eyes and turns abruptly away. "Go to bed, Dean."

The rest of the morning is silent, but he still can't sleep.


End file.
